Addicted Babies Are The Latest Victims in U.S. Opioid Crisis

Newborn babies are the most recent casualties of the U.S. opioid crisis.

With prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin being used by women who are pregnant, the result is an “explosion” of infants who are as addicted to the drugs as their mothers. Current published data in JAMA Pediatrics shows that the number of cases of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) has risen exponentially in the nation from 2000-2012, with nearly 22,000 affected infants in that last year alone.